Tag: teen

Lately I have been thinking a lot. Assessing my life and just spending time reflecting on where I am right now, in this present moment. I came to a few conclusions; one being that I am probably the happiest I have ever been, but one stood out, and that was this blog, in particular the fact that I don’t write for this blog half as much as I should, and would like. Honestly, uploading a blog post is my favourite thing to do. Just seeing the likes come in (granted it isn’t many, but it’s still super cool) always feels extremely rewarding, yet, due to laziness, I haven’t uploaded a blog post in almost a month and this must change. So I have decided to make a bold decision, one which I aim to stick to and complete, and that is to upload an Instagram picture and hopefully an accompanying blog post every day for 365 days, or a year, as 365 days is known. I feel this will be a great way to document the year and maybe even inspire others as there isn’t much positivity on social media these days. Now, hear me out, the blog post may not happen every day. In an ideal world it will, but uni and stuff, so sometimes it will only be a picture, or a very short post, but still, there will be something. And it won’t just be a stupid Instagram picture either, it will be something that has inspired me in that day, something I’ve done etc. Kind of like a mini blog post in itself. But yeah, I have made a new Instagram account for this (so not the one on the side of this page), I would love it if you could follow it. The account is @mrharrisondavis (just click that and it should appear like magic).

Anyway, that’s all from me. Hope you’re all doling well and thanks for reading. Keep smiling Harrison.

Travelling solo versus travelling in a group/with friends. It’s a topic debated by many travelers around the world and I’m here to offer my share of wisdom on this topic. I may not have an abundance of knowledge on this, however; I have done both and therefore feel like I am adequately experienced to provide some good and valid insight, so here we go.

All my life I have traveled in a group, whether that be for a school trip, a family holiday, a lad’s holiday, or anything in between and they have all been great. On the other hand; I have also traveled a few times alone, recently on my month long backpacking trip to Thailand, which again was amazing. Now there are obviously pro’s and con’s to both, and that’s what I’m here to discuss, starting with travelling in a group.

The obvious benefit of travelling with other people is that it’s cheaper. 1 room split between 2 people, for example, is the best and most obvious saving. But the savings don’t stop there. Depending on the size of your group you can save on things like tours, taxi’s, entrance fee’s etc, granted this isn’t a guarantee, but with good haggling skills it can be achieved and sometimes with great success, and depending on where you are in the world, it can save you a lot of money.

Another positive for travelling in a group is that you have someone to share your incredible travel experiences with, something that will make you closer with that person and something that you can reminisce about together for years to come. In my opinion, it’s always better to share these moments with others, especially friends, however; I do understand that solo travelers prefer the more personal feelings of travelling alone, I just prefer to share these experiences with others.

Travelling in a group also means you won’t, or are less likely to, get lonely. Sometimes you just want someone to talk to, and if you are travelling solo this is, sometimes, not an option. But obviously if you have a travel partner/s you will always have someone to lift your spirits and mask the feeling of homesickness which might creep in from time to time. Travelling is not always easy, it can get stressful as things won’t always go to plan, therefore having someone you know with you is often very beneficial and again can keep your morale up and get you through the challenges of travelling.

On the other hand, solo travel also has its benefits. The main one is the fact that it is you and only you making all of the decisions. In a group people will have differing opinions on where to go, what to eat, where to stay etc. This could mean that you miss out on something you wanted to do due to the fact the majority of your party chose something else. Also, it could slow you down as it can often take a while to come to a decision on said subjects. Furthermore, the feeling of total freedom you get travelling alone is unbeatable. It’s very intimate, and evolves you as a person in ways you could never imagine. It’s just you and the earth, and that is so powerful.

However; obviously the best thing about solo travel is the fact that you will meet new people and make some great new friends. Whilst this isn’t restricted to solo travel, you will be more inclined to go out and interact with new people more. This can lead to new friendships made and a massive growth in your confidence. I mean, if you can go to a completely foreign country, overcome an insane amount of culture shock, meet new friends, gain amazing new experiences and just have an overall amazing time, then it is quite clear solo travel is definitely worth it, and in my opinion can be more rewarding than travelling with a group, particularly due to the amount of personal growth you will achieve.

So there is my two cents on the subject, I hope you enjoyed reading this. Stay tuned for new posts and keep smiling 🙂

I know it’s a cliche, but time does really fly. It feels like yesterday that I was nervous about transitioning into uni life, but here I am now, with a year under my belt and loving every minute of it.

I genuinely can’t believe that I have finished a year at uni, like how did that happen? (okay I still have one exam left, but still!) And not only that, but I’m actually doing quite well, despite my attendance may suggest. I mean, I haven’t failed anything yet, emphasis on the yet as I just submitted my poetry assignment, and this first year I’m on for at least a 2:1, which is bloody good and far better than I expected. Granted I’m not the perfect uni student, I have been roped into doing a few things I probably shouldn’t have and left whole assignments till the last day etc etc, but in my opinion that’s what uni is about, having fun, you just happen to get a degree out of it at the end. That outlook is more than likely an awful one, however; I just think Uni is far more about growing as a person than getting a qualification, but maybe that’s just my laid back attitude coming into play again.

Anyways, I’m rambling, as usual. If anyone reading this is on the fence about university, I say go for it, you won’t regret it. People look at it like it’s just the degree, but it’s so much more than that. You make friends and have experiences that will stay for life, you discover new passions, finally live independently and most importantly, grow exponentially as a person whilst still holding onto that childish, teenager side who goes clubbing the day before 9am lectures. Obviously it’s not for everyone, but uni, like life, is what you make of it, and in my opinion everyone can make uni the time of their lives if they want to.

But back to the title of this post. One of my favourite quotes is this “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” I like to try and live my life by that. Making the most of every opportunity, being the best possible person I can be and having a load of fun along the way. We’re all on this rollercoaster that is life together, so let’s make the most of it hey. And…

Believe it or not this is actually an argument us vegans hear, quite regularly as well unfortunately. And it is a quite simple one to refute, simply by saying no; Hitler wasn’t a vegetarian, not even close. Hitler was advised by his doctors to follow a vegetarian diet from ‘time to time’, emphasises on the time to time part of the sentence, due to the fact he suffered from severe flatulence, however; he was never an actual vegetarian. Just by looking at the facts we can decipher this. Biographers who wrote about Hitler (and who knew him quite well on a personal basis) openly describe his love for Bavarian sausages and game pie (“game” meaning wild meat from birds and other creatures) and Hitler’s own personal chef described his favourite meal as stuffed pigeon, not very vegetarian huh. Thanks to ‘naturalnews.com’ for the info. But let’s play it your way, let’s pretend Hitler was a vegetarian. The problem with that is the argument is a logical fallacy, aka an argument with extremely poor reasoning. To put it simply, one does not impact the other. You can be evil and you can be vegan, the two are by no means mutually inclusive. If you want to play that card then allow me to play mine. Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot… the list goes on, were all meat eaters, so surely that means meat eaters are also evil serial killers, right? No. Of course not, so can we agree to put this argument to bed now, as it really is a stupid one and just makes the arguer look like an idiot. Granted it is usually played at the end of debates when said party realises they have lost, but go out with dignity for goodness sakes. So, to clear up, no Hitler was not a vegetarian, but who cares if he was?

For some reason these last few weeks I’ve felt super happy, like on top of the world and I have no idea why, but I like it (obviously). Nothing of note has changed in my life, I just feel great. Maybe it’s because I have finally motivated myself to actually start working; whether that be Uni work, attending class or writing blog posts, I have finally pulled the metaphorical finger out and started being productive again. Like this week was my first week at University where I got 100% attendance and, bearing in mind I only have 8 hours a week and this is week 11 (or 12?), that is not something to be proud of. I also just love University in general. It’s not like school where you had groups of people, many of whom were horridly judgmental and just mean, everyone is like minded and therefore pretty much everyone gets along. Living away from home (gotta be careful here because my Mum usually reads my posts) is also amazing, I love being able to go in the kitchen and just sit and talk with my flatmates, who are awesome and somehow cope with my weirdness. The people I’ve met and became acquainted with at Uni are people I will never forget and, luckily for me, many of them live abroad so hopefully I have somewhere to stay when I go travelling, not to use them or anything, haha. In addition to this I’ve actually sorted out my accommodation for next year, super exciting. Whilst I love halls I cannot wait to live in a house, who I am sharing with my 2 awesome friends, I mean the landlord said I can have a pet Tortoise, of course I’m gonna be excited!

So yeah, bit of a random post but life is good at the moment and why not spread some positivity. Oooh one more thing. I got my grade for my Studying Literature module and it was, to my bemusement, an A grade, which I am ecstatic with and it has upped my confidence for the course massively. I hope everyone who reads this is also feeling happy. Keep smiling, Harrison 🙂

Is it just me or has social media been overrun by spam/bot accounts over the last few months? Literally every social media seems to be full of them, even my WordPress has, sadly, been affected. On Instagram I keep getting followed by, quite clearly fake, porn accounts asking me to ‘message them on Kik’. On Tumblr every single tag is full of click bait articles, with no relevance to the tag, being spammed, such as ’10 myths about Sex that are actually true’. On Twitter I have had an influx of ‘follow 4 follow’ accounts following me and now finally even WordPress has been affected and I have been getting 100’s of views from places like Jordan in a matter of seconds, which has very much skewed my stats page.

I even asked my friends if they were experiencing the same problem, just in case I had clicked on something by accident which may have caused this, but no, they have had the same issues. Now this is nothing more than an inconvenience and I’m not going to get annoyed by it, but I hope it gets sorted before it gets even worse.

Side note but some horrible human has hacked University Wi-Fi’s across the UK so now my Wi-Fi is being rubbish and I can’t continue my Tom Cruise marathon. First world problems man 😦

So yeah, let me know if you’ve been experiencing the same and Keep Smiling 🙂

Poetry. Poetry has slowly but surely become the bane of my existence over these last few months. One of my modules (Creative Writing: Poetry) requires me to write a lot of poetry, obviously, hence the name, and I just can’t do it. Not only do I struggle with writing poetry, but reading it too. I struggle comprehending some of the incredibly vivid imagery poets use to describe such seemingly simple topics, like say love, or death if you’re Edgar Allan Poe. I struggle understanding the structure and syntax and why authors chose such features and the significance these features have in the poem. But I suppose that’s the beauty of poetry, its complexity. Mainstream literature concentrates more so on the novel as the main art form and poetry seems to have declined over the years, at least in the eyes of the mainstream, and now is stereo-typically only written, and read, by the ‘high culture’ in society. But why is Prose so much more appreciated, at least by the majority? I suppose because novels are more relatable to humans in a simpler way and easier to connect to on a basic level. For example; everyone wants to hear a story. A before, middle and end and whilst poetry, in many cases, does tell a story, it presents this story in a far deeper way, hidden behind intricate imagery and language, which is perhaps why people, myself included, struggle to get into poetry initially. However, when you do connect with and understand a poem it is far more powerful than reading a novel. And whilst I started this post addressing poetry in a somewhat negative manner, I would like to finish by saying that poetry is beautiful. The reason my initial apprehension surrounding poetry existed was due to the fact I just didn’t, and couldn’t, understand it. As I have delved more into poetry and it’s multitude of different forms I have learnt to appreciate it more and more, even if I don’t quite understand it at first. So yeah, I don’t really know what the point of this post is, or whether it makes any sense, just wanted to show poetry some appreciation haha.